Chapter 14: Continuation Bet
Takeru bent down and pried up the corners of his two down cards.
"Alright, Takeru's got a nice Razz starting hand. He's got a six showing, and his hole cards are an ace and a three. He's got three cards to a six-low."
"I'm gonna raise it up," Takeru said, putting in two black chips.
"And he's going to indeed play, he raises. The bring-in bet was one hundred, so he matches that and raises another hundred. Takeru's been fairly anonymous over the last hour of this tournament, he's only really participated in a couple hands, these might be the best cards he's gotten since the first hour or so."
"Surrey folds, Watanabe folds, and...alright, Dan Jetten has to like that. He's got a five showing and a two and a three in the hole, three cards to a five-low. He's certainly in, he might even raise."
"Three hundred." Jetten threw in three black chips, letting them clatter into the middle of the table.
"He's drawing to the best possible hand in Razz, and when you have a hand like that, you push the action. In Razz, there's just no guarantee you're ever going to make your good hand, so if you can end a hand early, all the better."
"Ruth Jordan, she had to pay the bring-in bet, has a king showing and a pair of nines in the hole, one of the worst hands you can have in Razz, she's certainly not going to consider playing that."
Jordan tossed her three cards over to the dealer, using her forefinger to flick the one black chip out in front of her past the yellow line towards the middle. Takeru put out another black chip, signifying a call.
"Takeru, however, is in. He's a bit behind right now, but here's where Razz becomes such an aggravating game. Both players have very nice starting hands, but it's so easy to never make an actual good five card hand."
The dealer dealt out a seven to Takeru and an eight to Jetten.
"Fourth cards are out, and the tables have turned just a bit. It's still a pretty even match right now, but Takeru now has ace three six seven, so he's got four pretty low cards. A two, four, or five will give Takeru a seven low. Jetten's hand, two three five eight, gives him a draw to an eight low. Both players have to like that card."
"Now, in Razz, betting begins with the lowest hand showing. Takeru has six seven, Jetten has five eight, Takeru will act first. Look for him to push the action with such a promising hand."
"One hundred," Takeru quickly announced, placing out another black chip.
"Raise," Jetten countered after half a second, putting out two black chips.
"Both players love their hand, I don't blame them. And Takeru's frozen a bit, maybe a bit of hollywood here. He can see that Jetten has an eight showing, so he knows for a fact that he has the best hand right now since his highest card is a seven, and he has every reason to raise."
Takeru grimaced, shuffling his chips on the felt in front of him, thinking.
"So, as just about anyone knows, poker in general can be a frustrating game. What makes Razz a more extreme example of that? Let's talk about this for the viewers, I know a lot of younger players aren't familiar with Razz."
"Well, it's a lowball game, which I think is inherently a more frustrating game. Drawing to a low hand just goes against what most poker players know as proper poker strategy. But really, it's about how expensive it can be to actually make a good hand, and how many times a good starting hand gets completely blown up."
"Raise." Takeru tossed out two more black chips.
"And Takeru pushes it to three hundred, as he should do. Anyway, if you think about a game like Holdem, which is the game everyone knows, your starting hand can have a lot more value. The best starting hand in Holdem is two aces. If you get that hand, you know for a fact that you're going to have at least a pair of aces by the end. And a pair of aces is often strong enough to win a pot at showdown. That has immediate value."
"Call." Jetten made a single black chip offering.
"But in Razz, the best possible starting hand would be ace two three, but that hand is just potential. It doesn't have any showdown value yet. Yes, occasionally, you draw out a four and a five, making the best possible Razz hand. But sometimes, you get dealt face cards, or you get pairs. I mean, you might end up drawing out four kings in a row! And if something like that happens, your hand ends up being completely worthless with no chance of winning, even after starting out so well."
The dealer, flipping the cards up as she dealt them out, tossed Takeru a king and Jetten a three.
"And here's exactly what I'm talking about! Takeru gets dealt a king, the worst card in Razz since it's considered to be the biggest card in the deck. And Jetten gets a three, which is a good low card, but unfortunately he has a three in his hand already, so he's picked up a pair! This kind of stuff drives players mad!"
Takeru tapped the felt a few times.
"The good news for Takeru is that he HAS made a king low, so he's guaranteed to be able to make a hand with no pairs no matter what comes next. But with that king face up for everyone to see, Takeru knows it's going to be very hard to convince Jetten that he has a good hand, so he slows down."
Jetten put out two black chips.
"And Jetten fires two hundred. This is a good move by him. He has a pair of threes, but Takeru can't know that. One of his threes is face down. All Takeru can see is a five, an eight, and a three, so for all Takeru knows Jetten has already made an eight low, or some other strong Razz hand."
"I call," Takeru said, putting out two of his black chips.
"Takeru stays in, however, since he still has a draw to a seven low. At worst, Jetten has an eight low, so he's drawing to the best hand as of now."
Another card went out to both players. Takeru got the six, Jetten got the five.
"And the cruelty of Razz strikes yet again. Takeru pairs his six, Jetten pairs his five, and there's no secrets here! Takeru can look right across the table, and see that Jetten has two fives face up, and Jetten can also see Takeru's pair of sixes."
"Yup, Russ, this is Razz. You start out with so much potential, and it bottoms out on you as often as it works out well. Now, Takeru already made a qualifying low hand, so he doesn't have to worry about the pair. His hand is still a king low. But, the kid didn't improve his hand there, and he probably thinks he needs to improve in order to win. Jetten's hand also failed to improve, he's got a pair of threes."
Jetten again bet out two black chips. Takeru immediately matched the bet.
"Wow! That was a fast call by Takeru. I think he's trying to project strength, try to talk Jetten out of bluffing the seventh card. Takeru would prefer to not have to commit any more chips to this hand, he just wants to get to showdown and hope he wins. If Jetten is bluffing, and Takeru seems to suspect that's the case, he wants him to give up. That snap-call by Takeru was a message. It said, I know you're bluffing, don't try it again."
The dealer made the seventh cards both face down, shipping them over.
"Here comes the final card for both players. Jetten needs to improve to win, Takeru needs to improve to have any real confidence in his hand. Jetten is going to be first to act this time, with the lowest hand showing."
Slowly, Jetten looked down at a deuce.
"Oh, boy howdy, that's the kind of runout that makes a Razz player want to punch a hole in the wall! Jetten has every low card you could want in Razz, but he's paired up three times! He's got a pair of threes, a pair of fives, AND a pair of twos!"
"Perfect example of what makes Razz so frustrating. Jetten started out with loads of potential to make a great low hand, and when the smoke cleared, his final hand is a pair of deuces with a three five eight."
Jetten, however, was seemingly unfazed, putting a pair of black chips out in front.
"But Jetten isn't going to give up. There's quite a bit in that pot, and Takeru might not have a good hand either, he's gonna try to bluff at it. Let's find out about Takeru."
Takeru, holding his fingers on top of his final card, watched Jetten place out his bet, then bent down to look at what he had been dealt.
"And Takeru has...he's got a jack! So his hand DOES improve, his best five card hand is now a jack low. But in the world of Razz, jack low is a pretty mediocre hand, and doesn't win very many pots. All Takeru can beat here is a bluff. As it turns out, that's just what Jetten has."
Takeru glared over the table at Jetten, trying to piece together the logic of the hand.
"All Takeru has to do is risk another two hundred chips. The pot is nearly two thousand chips. But Takeru doesn't want to lose another two thousand chips if he can avoid it. So this isn't an easy call to make with a jack low."
Takeru stared at Jetten's up cards. Five, eight, five, three.
"The pair of fives aside, that's a really good quartet of upcards for Jetten. He could easily have made an eight low or better, all he would need to have is two cards smaller than an eight that didn't pair him face down. I don't know what he's gonna do."
"I mean, obviously I look pretty weak with a king and a pair face up," Takeru said, breaking the icy silence that had engulfed the table for the last minute or so. "You could have quads and still bet there." Takeru pushed out two black chips.
"You win," Jetten said quietly, face wrinkled with irritation. "I have a pair of deuces. I have three pair."
Takeru flipped over his down cards, showing a made jack low, taking the hand.
"And nice call by Takeru there! He was getting a great price, but he correctly realized, that since his face up cards included a king and a pair of sixes, it was much more likely Jetten would be trying to bluff him. He actually had a pretty good hand given his up cards, and he thought Jetten was bluffing here often enough to make it profitable."
"Oh, why do I play this damn game," Jetten groaned. "You gotta be crazy to play this game."
"I've been playing this game for forty years," an elderly short man in thick glasses said from two chairs to the left of Jetten. "And I agree with you."
"Heh, that's...that's Kyle Weller, voicing his agreement."
"Well, Russ, if you ever walked into a card room and saw a group of angry looking old people in the corner, playing a card game you didn't recognize at one of the tables, they were probably playing Razz. And if you ever wondered why those old people were so angry, it's because they were playing Razz. That hand right there was a great example of why."
OOO
~Takeru~
"I think it's a great game, don't understand all the hate." Ken shrugged, hands in his pockets, looking around the poker room.
"Yeah, well, good for you," Takeru grunted.
"I love lowball games," Ken continued. "It's kind of like an untapped market, since so many people don't play them, and a lot of people don't play them well."
"What table are you at now?" Takeru asked.
"I'm over on table two," Ken answered. "Sammy is too, he was down to like three hundred chips, managed to win four straight hands. He's got four thousand. I've got seven thousand."
"I'm on vapors," Takeru said. "I've got three bring-ins left, twelve hundred chips." He thought for a moment. "How many left in the field?"
"I just checked the board, we're down to fifty-five players," Ken said. "Top forty-five cash, we're close."
"I need to make a move soon." Takeru nodded, putting his hands up on the rail. "Can't make the money if I don't chip up soon." He reached over to his right, holding his fist out towards Hikari right next to him. "Give me some love, Hikari, I'm gonna need it and I need it fast."
Hikari reached out and rubbed her palms over Takeru's fist for a quick second. "You can do it, sir. If anyone can do it, it's you."
"Thanks so much." Takeru looked up at the timer counting down right above table five. "Alright, I'm back on in thirty seconds. Good luck, Ken. And send my regards to Sammy." He leapt over the railing, hustling back over to his chair to the right of the dealer.
"Alright folks, we'll get another hand in the air in a few seconds," the dealer announced as Takeru sat down.
"How much you got there, Takeru?" A female player, Kelly Spiro, three seats away leaned forward, looking over at Takeru's stack of black chips.
"Not much," Takeru replied. "I've got three bring-ins left, twelve hundred."
"Ten off the money," she said. "You know, I'd hate to be the person who kept you from making history."
"Well, these things happen, you can't sweat it," Takeru replied. "I've already made history anyway. Got no problem with getting felted here if it happens."
The cards were whisked from the dealer, everyone getting two cards face down and a card face up. Takeru surveyed the table, relieved to see that his face up nine was not the highest visible card, thus meaning he didn't have to pay the bring-in.
Slowly, he pried up his two face down cards. Ace three.
"Yeah, I'm folding." Another player tossed his cards over to the dealer. Quickly, the player to Takeru's right also folded, leaving him to ponder his move. He had four black chips in his hand, switching them around from hand to hand.
"I call." Takeru flipped the four black chips across the line. He sat back, waiting for the action to wrap up, hoping nobody raised.
"Four players. Sixteen hundred in the pot," the dealer announced after a minute. He dealt out face up cards to each of the four remaining. Takeru was treated to a six, giving him a draw to a nine low.
"I check," Kelly said, pointing over to Takeru. He took the opportunity to look around the table. Three other players. Kelly Spiro, and two players on the other side of the table. David Fletcher and Guy Francois. David was showing an ace and an eight, Guy a seven and a ten, and Kelly displayed a two and a jack.
The pieces came together in his head. David's initial upcard was an ace, so for him to not raise his hole cards must have not been very good. Francois and Kelly could not have liked getting dealt a ten and a jack. Certainly he was in good shape.
"Bet." Takeru took half of his remaining chips and put them in. "I've got four hundred left," he added, knowing that people would want to know how much trouble they could be in if they stuck around.
David sighed. "I mean...an eight is right on that line. If it's a little better, I'm in for sure. A little worse, I'm out for sure." He shrugged, throwing four chips in. "Alright, I call." Guy was quick to fold behind, putting the action to Kelly.
"Sure." She put four chips in as well, surprising Takeru a bit.
A fifth card went out to each player, Takeru pulling in a queen. He now had a qualifying low hand, but it wasn't a particularly strong one, a queen low. David had received an ace, pairing his low card, and Kelly had nabbed a seven.
Kelly tapped the felt a few times. Takeru, considering the stack of black in front of him, decided there was no way he wasn't going to get it in here one way or another and slowly picked them up.
"All-in," he said, putting out the four blacks.
"Alright, I've seen enough," David said, throwing his cards over to the dealer. "Even for that price, I don't beat anything."
Kelly nodded. "Man, I said what I said right before this hand, too, of course it would play out like this." She looked over at Takeru. "I think I have to call, buddy."
Takeru didn't react, just looking straight down at his cards.
She put out four more black chips, signifying her commitment to the remainder of the hand. "I've got a jack low."
"Jack low is ahead for now," Takeru said, turning over his two down cards. "Queen low." Kelly turned over a five and an six.
"All-in and a call," the dealer announced. "Sixth street on the way."
"Surprised you didn't raise on third street with that," Takeru said, looking over at Kelly's cards.
"I like to play tight on Razz," she said.
"Alright folks," the dealer said with a bit of a flourish. "We've got...queen nine six three ace up against jack seven six five two!" He threw out a card to Kelly, then one to Takeru. Takeru had gotten a two, giving him a nine low, but to his mild dismay, Kelly had received a three, giving her the superior seven low.
"That was a pretty good deal," Kelly said, setting her sixth card up on the board. "Alright, you need a...four or a five to take the lead."
Takeru nodded. "Hey, it's up to the deck now, nothing we can do."
The dealer dealt out a card to each of the players, this one face down, hiding Takeru's fate from the world for a moment.
"You go first," Kelly said. "Let me know if I have to look."
Takeru bent down a bit, slowly lifting the corner of the card up. He put his thumb up on the corner so he couldn't see the card value yet.
"Ooh, two across!" Takeru said, looking at the two diamonds that were visible along the left side of the card. "If this is a four you're drawing dead, if it's a five you need...an ace to win I think."
Without checking, he turned the card face up, flipping it up into the air and letting it land in the middle of the table, showing a four.
"We've got a six four three two ace," the dealer said, putting the card back over in front of Takeru. Kelly, having already been guaranteed a loss, turned over a meaningless ten.
"Alright, nice hand, that was a fun one," Kelly said, watching the pot of three thousand chips go over Takeru's way.
"Well. Puts me back in the hunt." Takeru began to stack the pile of black chips.
OOO
"Ah, I've got paint," Takeru said, whipping the card up to show a king to the table. "No way I'm good, you've got it."
The player to Takeru's right flipped over a six, an ace, and an eight. "Nine low."
"Yeah, I've got...I guess I've got a king low." Takeru stood up. "Alright man, good playing." He shook his hand, then turned back to the rail.
"Hey, you're the first ever to cash at all four thousand dollar events!" Another player shouted out from the other side of the table. Takeru turned back around to look at the player. "That's pretty sweet man!"
"It feels good," Takeru admitted. He walked over to the railing, stepping over it, out next to Hikari.
"Congratulations, sir," Hikari said.
"Thirty-fifth ain't so bad," Takeru replied, stretching his arms up high over his head. "Wow. That's like four straight days of nothing but cards. I've had sessions like that before, but man, they do have a way of taking it out of you."
"You've done incredibly well," Hikari added. "Even I can see that."
Takeru looked up at the wall clock. "Wow, got some time to kill tonight. That'll be nice. What are we gonna do?" He thought for a second, looking around the room at the four remaining tables in the tournament. "Well. Gotta relax, and...hey, Hikari." He looked over at her. "I think I already know the answer to this, but...you ever gotten a massage before?"
OOO
~Hikari~
The first minute or two was actually unpleasant. Kind of stressful, really.
And then, as soon as she talked herself into relaxing her body, it was heaven.
Takeru had hung around long enough to see Ken go out in twenty-eighth and Sammy exit in twenty-first. After that, it was time to have some fun. He had gone up to his overly spacious hotel room and ordered an entire table loaded with assorted foods, as well as a giant cooler full of drinks. With such a bounty of nourishment, it took no goading for all of Takeru's friends to show up, and the large chamber was filled with activity. Takeru had even managed to draw Koushiro to the event, running into him at the tail end of the Razz tournament and tempting him with food and drink. Mimi wasn't going to be left out either, and had shown up too.
Takeru had also requested the presence of four licensed masseuses, and so their little get-together also included a quartet of middle-aged men and women in casino uniforms, hard at work on anyone who requested service. At Takeru's suggestion, Hikari had given it a spin. Climbing onto a bizarre bench-chair hybrid that allowed her body to lean forward a bit without having her be entirely prone, a woman a few inches taller than Hikari had started kneading her shoulders. After a few moments of discomfort, Hikari now found the experience to be fantastic. Strong, skilled fingers digging into her shoulders, getting down to the muscles below, relieving tension. The decades of hard work she had been put through with no regard for her well-being could never be undone by a massage session, but at least in the short term, she found that it felt very good.
As she was receiving the treatment, she kept her head up, looking out onto the room of people, still intrigued by the dynamics of the people in front of her and wanting to watch the evening play out. Koushiro, being the apparent celebrity that he was, had attracted the most attention, as everyone wanted a chance to talk with him. He seemed quite content to sit back on the couch, his bare feet up on one of the ottoman's, receiving a massage from one of the professionals, and interact with anyone who wanted to.
"I remember spectatoring your heads up match against Mister Quads, the five hundred thousand dollar buyin one, I watched the whole thing. Couldn't put you on hands, spent the whole thing trying to figure out what you were doing, couldn't do it. You steamrolled him, took like twenty minutes." Yuma shook his head, grinning. "You were...what, nineteen then? Nineteen year old kid, goes on the forums and says he'll take on anyone heads up for half a million, and you just completely wreck one of the biggest heads up specialists in the world."
"Not sure which one you're talking about," Koushiro replied, lifting a thin glass bottle to his face up and sipping from it. "Me and Mister Quads battled at least six times before he gave up."
"I think it was the first one. That one was a big deal, the whole academy was buzzing the day it went down." Yuma was seated on another couch that made a kitty corner with the one Koushiro was on. "Watching you play poker was...it's was an experience, I learned a lot. I think everyone here learned a lot."
"Believe me man, I wasn't the first one to play poker like that," Koushiro insisted. "Maybe I was the first one to make millions of dollars doing it, but...I'm sure I wasn't the first one." He leaned back, clearly enjoying the massage.
Ken came up behind the couch, holding a glass bottle in his right hand. "Your forum posts on checkback boards changed my life man. Heads up play was never the same for me after reading those posts."
"Maybe I shouldn't have made those posts," Koushiro said. "Could have kept all that to myself. It's like, so many players have gotten so much better over the last six years, maybe I had something to do with that."
"Well, posts like that made you a celebrity, believe me." Ken smirked. "Stuff like that got you on the television shows, might have been worth it, even if it made everyone else a better player."
"I'm not sure that's good either," Koushiro replied. "On TV, everyone sees your cards, helps them see how you play. Sometimes I wonder." He pointed down at the masseuse. "This is awesome, by the way, I didn't know you could get this sent up to your room."
"It's only offered to the deluxe suites," Takeru said, coming over and sitting down in one of the chairs close to the couch, holding a small plate of caviar. "Where you staying during the world series?"
Koushiro gave a tiny smile. "Not in one of these, that's for sure. If it was up to me, I'd just get a cardboard box in the alleyway behind The Horseshoe, for all the time I'd be spending in my room." He looked over his shoulder, pointing his thumb at Mimi. "But she wasn't having it."
"Darn right," Mimi said back, conversing with Daisy by the glass door leading out to the balcony, turning her head over to look at her boyfriend. "Someone has to save you from yourself."
"Come on, man, you've got truckloads and truckloads of money." Akira came over from the kitchen counter, holding a plate of beef sliders. "You can splurge on a nice hotel room for a couple months."
Koushiro shrugged. "I grew up in a lower class suburb in Leavensworth. I'm still developing my taste for the finer things in life."
"And I'm working very hard to develop that taste as fast as I can." Mimi slowly walked over towards the couch. "Lord knows he needs it, with all that money in the bank." She put her hands down on the top of the backrest of the couch. "If it wasn't for me, Koushiro would be showing up to these poker tournaments in a white tanktop with grease stains, sweatpants, and flip-flops."
"That's an exaggeration," Koushiro insisted, lazily pointing his left index finger up towards Mimi's face. "Though that does sound comfortable, I might play better wearing that."
Mimi rolled her eyes, then reached over the back of the couch, pulling the bottle of beer from his hand. She lifted it up to her lips, taking a drag from it, then replacing it back in his hand.
"You're welcome," Koushiro said dryly.
"I'm checking to be sure," Mimi said, a sardonic grin on her face. "When I met this guy, he was worth fifteen million dollars and he was drinking Monico brand beer."
"What the hell is Monico?" Ken asked, looking over at Mimi.
"It's store brand beer, they sell it at Quik-N-Go. It's like, four dollars for a six pack, tastes like urine."
"Hey, gimme a break," Koushiro said defensively. "I grew up eating ramen packs five times a week. Monico is what my father drank, I have an immense amount of respect for my father, I wanted to be like him."
Mimi reached her hands over, putting them on Koushiro's head, digging her fingers down into his scalp. "Well, that's because your father was a misunderstood genius who got stuck teaching math at a two-star academy and making thirty-five thousand a year, sweetie. He didn't drink it because he wanted to, he drank it because he had to."
Hikari gave a small smile from her seat on the massage chair. There was something very charming about the relationship that Koushiro and Mimi seemed to have. She enjoyed watching them interact.
"You know something, Prodigious, I had a huge crush on you when I was at academy." Daisy joined the conversation, stepping over to the couch. Daisy was clearly not afraid to be a bit bold, and had come to the get-together wearing the exact same bikini she had been wearing earlier in the day, adding only a very thin, red jacket over her shoulders that only went down to her mid-stomach to up her modesty ever-so-slightly.
"Well, you should have come and found me then," Koushiro said, tilting his head back to look at Daisy. "I only met Mimi two years ago, you missed your window."
"Thin ice, darling," Mimi said warningly. "Alert the fish, you're on thin ice with that."
"No no, that's the thing, I couldn't have!" Daisy continued. "This was when I was fifteen, sixteen, when your legend online was just...blowing up, back when people didn't know who you were or anything. When you were just an internet account making millions of dollars. I mean, that's it, I had a crush on Prodigious."
"So what, you...had a thing for my account avatar?" Koushiro gave a little laugh.
"I had a thing for the guy who was revolutionizing poker," Daisy said.
"And then, obviously, when you found out what I looked like, boom, no more crush," Koushiro said sarcastically.
"Well, obviously," Daisy said with a grin. "I mean, you started showing up at live games, and poof, gone."
"Oh, you think he's ugly now, you should have seen him before I came along," Mimi said, continuing the line of joking insults. "You have no idea."
"Right." Daisy pulled her small jacket off her shoulders. "Hey there." She waved over at one of the masseuses who was unoccupied at the moment. "I should warn you, back at home, my mother has a full-time masseuse employed, and he is phenomenal, so...I have high expectations."
"I thrive under pressure, ma'am," he replied, waving her over towards his massage chair.
"So, the fireworks really kick off tomorrow," Takeru said.
"Fireworks?" Sammy, holding a large plate of breaded shrimp in his right hand, came over. "Listen to this guy, he's won a bracelet, has profitted nearly three hundred thousand dollars, and he's acting like there haven't been fireworks."
"Hey, Abaid, you know the ocean called, they're running out of shrimp." Daisy slid into the massage chair, shooting Sammy a playful grin.
"How about, the world series of poker called, they're running out of cashes," Sammy said, pointing at Takeru.
"Yeah, but...tomorrow. Tomorrow, the real money starts flowing in. Twenty-five hundred buyins, five thousand, ten thousand ones down the line, gets juicy fast. Plus we've got more people coming in every day." Takeru nodded. "It only gets harder."
"You aren't the one who has to worry about that," Daryl said, joining the conversation from behind the couch. "You're the one who's guaranteed profit no matter what happens now. You could bomb out of the first hand in every tournament the whole rest of the way."
"That isn't the plan, though," Takeru replied. "I mean, already, I'm not just...Hiroaki's son anymore. They don't think of me as Hiroaki's son, they think of me as Takeru. And that's just after four days."
"Hey, preaching to the choir," Sammy said, pointing at himself. "Think about what I have to accomplish to get out of my father's shadow."
"If I don't win a bracelet this year, I'm gonna look like the biggest asshole on the planet," Koushiro said, pulling a couple of breaded shrimp off a plate that Mimi had brought over. "Like, I have practically no world series experience, I don't like my tournament play, and out of the blue I just put up a million dollar bet on winning the biggest award in poker."
"Well, dear, you...could have just not made the bet," Mimi said, the latter portion of her sentence coming out through gritted teeth.
"You're gonna like it a lot more when I'm getting a five million dollar deposit in a couple months," Koushiro replied. "That's, like, one and a quarter million six packs of Monico."
"Well, you know I'm rooting for you." Takeru leaned back in his chair. "Of course, if it ever happens that...we're heads up for a bracelet in one of these tournaments...I won't be giving it away."
"Of course not," Koushiro replied. "Wouldn't want you to. I believe in myself, I believe in my ability, and I believe in taking big risks to win big."
"Man, I knew I'd be seeing some big timers here at this world series, but...having dinner with Prodigious," Ken said, looking practically giddy. "I mean, honestly, I think it's weird to talk to a guy while he's getting a massage, I think that's...kind of an intimate thing. Like how you wouldn't start talking to a guy in a public restroom when he's at an urinal. But I'm just so excited to talk to this guy, I don't even care, I'm talking to him no matter what he's doing."
"Hey, your friend might really be better than me, I'm just saying." He pointed at Takeru. "He's cashed in four out of four tournaments. You guys should be geeking out with him."
Takeru gave a big laugh. "Don't even...don't even try that, buddy. As of right now, you're a legend. And I'm just some punk kid who has a bracelet along with...thousands of others throughout history."
"You impress me, my friend," Koushiro insisted. "I watched some of the big hands you had in the one thousand Holdem and Omaha events, I think you're real good."
"Easy to look good when you've been getting some of the cards I've gotten," Takeru said. "And when did you have time to watch my hands?"
"I don't sleep very much," Koushiro replied. "I'm just trying to live and breathe poker for a couple months here."
"Yeah, I can attest to that," Mimi said. "Don't know how he's alive, much less able to play good poker."
"Plenty of time to sleep when I'm dead," Koushiro replied.
"That's the spirit," Takeru said with a small grin.
OOO
"I didn't think I would like it as much as I did," Hikari said, stretching her back out. The final remains of the party food had just been taken out of the front door, officially ending the evening of fun and relaxation.
"Hey, whenever you want another, all you gotta do is ask," Takeru said. "Least I can do with all the good fortune you've been bringing."
Hikari smiled. "You're making your own luck, sir."
Takeru clapped a couple times. "Man, I...I knew there was a chance I'd see him, but having dinner with him, talking with him...Koushiro Izumi hanging out in my hotel room, I wouldn't have even imagined it."
"He seemed like a very nice guy," Hikari agreed.
"He has that reputation," Takeru said. "Even as he's taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from you, he's very polite and nice about it." He looked up at the wall clock. "Alright, even after all that, we can both be asleep before ten."
"Sounds good to me sir," Hikari replied, walking over towards the staircase leading up to the bedrooms.
"I'll meet you up there in five minutes," Takeru said, unbuttoning his shirt and walking over towards the bathroom.
Hikari, about to step on the first step, froze, turning over his shoulder to look at Takeru. "...uh-huh." She could feel her heart sink a bit as she quickly realized what Takeru must be indicating. She watched him disappear into the restroom, closing the door behind him, then turned to look up the stairs. The climb suddenly seemed much steeper than it had just five seconds ago. With a grimace, she began to slowly make the ascent anyway.
OOO
Hikari laid back in her bed, hands up behind her head, looking up at the ceiling with wide eyes. Every few seconds, she blinked. Her mind was buzzing, the opposite of what she wanted as she tried to get to sleep.
Takeru had came and gone, the entire process efficient and swift. He had entered the room, wordlessly gotten into the bed, and gotten right down to business. She played her part well, and he reciprocated. He was clearly skilled and experienced, and Hikari could appreciate that.
But she just couldn't get any enjoyment out of it.
And now, with Takeru having left when the deed was done, she couldn't stop trying to figure it all out. Did she reject how empty and meaningless this arrangement felt? Something like that. His mannerisms before and after the act seemed to say it all. Nothing to it. Just something you did, like taking out the garbage or doing the laundry. Not all how she imagined it. Not at all what she wanted.
Should she have ever imagined something like this at all? Maybe not. She had always thought her life would be nothing but endless days of servitude and labor, with no time for relationships beyond her brother. And here she was, getting massages and eating great food, asked to do practically nothing, and having occasional sex with her owner. It should have been a dream come true. And most of it was.
Yet, it left her wanting. More than that, she didn't like it. And through it all, those words from Daisy earlier in the day kept running through her mind. If you can do anything to help him grow up a bit, you should do it.
What did that mean, and what could she do? Was this even what she was talking about?
All of this prevented any immediate sleep. She rolled over onto her side, sighing. Part of her felt rather greedy, to be so upset over something like this given where she was a month ago. But she was sure this wasn't what she wanted. She was sure this just wasn't right.
What to do about it?